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Our Salmons' Journey

The salmon is an anadromous animal meaning that its juvenile phase is spent in freshwater and then it undergoes physiological changes to allow it to spend the majority of its life in seawater. It then returns to freshwater to breed.

After hatching from ova, the first phase of the life cycle of a salmon is the alevin stage. During which, the fish uses the nutrients in their yolk sack for growth. Once the yolk sac is exhausted, the young salmon reaches the 'free-swimming' fry stagel; at which point they are introduced to an artificial diet. Eventually, dark, oval parr marks develop along its flank as it reaches the final freshwater stage. This is when the fry becomes a parr.

During the spring the increasing day length triggers a physiological change to allow it to survive in salt water, the parr loses its parr-marks and starts swimming with the current. This change is known as smoltification and at this point the salmon can be transferred to seawater to grow until of harvestable size.

For more information about how we raise our salmon, please visit the 'Husbandry' section.